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DIY: Do It Yourself Post here to share or improve your wrench turning skills! All BMW E46 DIY tips, tales, and projects discussed inside. Learn to work on your car and know the right BMW parts you will need!

Help!
My iPod n iPhone work fine. I tested Sirius portable, cig powered, antenna cable coiled on passenger seat and up through sunroof for test purposes, 12inch headphone male male wire. Worked great.
Ripped apart backseat and trunk liner, ran antenna line concealed from trunk to driver area.
Now my radio will not recognize Sirius as an aux source. iPhone still works fine as aux. I even start with aux and try to switch as fast as I can, but there's no tricking the radio - it does not recognize Sirius as an equal!!!
Thoughts? I hate to rip the car apart to pull the antenna. Nor does that make sense as the reason to me.

UPDATE: interestingly tonight I was listening to iPhone with aux cable, when the battery started to get low. I plugged in my cigarette lighter iPhone charger and the radio no longer recognized the aux input and defaulted to CD! I tried to select AUX- no go. Unplugged the iPhone from the charger, hit mode, went back to AUX no problem.

Why/how do the aux input and cigarette lighter have anything to do with each other? Can't just be dumb luck, right?
Is it possible the aux cable is touching the cig lighter wires and that is the effect?

UPDATE: interestingly tonight I was listening to iPhone with aux cable, when the battery started to get low. I plugged in my cigarette lighter iPhone charger and the radio no longer recognized the aux input and defaulted to CD! I tried to select AUX- no go. Unplugged the iPhone from the charger, hit mode, went back to AUX no problem.

Why/how do the aux input and cigarette lighter have anything to do with each other? Can't just be dumb luck, right?
Is it possible the aux cable is touching the cig lighter wires and that is the effect?

My Setup:
-regular aux in with caps and resistors with the port in the glovebox.
-cigarette lighter to USB adapter(or you can use BMW flashlight USB kit) tapped in the fuse box for switched power and placed in the glovebox.
-iPhone dock cable with aux out and USB connections.

Advantages:
-Charge and use the aux in with the iPhone using a single dock cable.
-Sound quality is much better since the output is line level from the dock connector.
-Only One cable, so less clutter.
-Can you different device in aux port and charge a different device in the USB port if need be.
-Can just buy a cable to do the same for any other device just like I did with the iPhone to use a single cable to charge and aux out.
-Cable sits inside the glovebox when not in use.
-Looks very OEM.
-Spares your cigarette lighter port and the ashtray.

Disadvantage:
-Cant control the volume with the iPhone (but I do it from my steering anyway).
-Kind of time consuming because you have to take out the glovebox and make holes for the aux in port and wires for USB adapter.

Bottom line:
I am very happy, because I use my iPhone as GPS with tom tom app and it kills the battery very fast. So its nice to use one cable to charge and work as aux out. OT: also the tom tom app allows you to play your iPod music while the GPS is not talking and fades out the song when giving verbal directions.

hey guys. I've been wanting to add an aux input on my car but I'm having trouble finding the right stuff that would work on my car. I drive an 02/2002 330ci with no cd changer in the back. I hope you guys can help me out. I'm new to this forum. I've only been a member for about a week. Thanks

I have an addition to this thread that might be useful for anyone whos done the mod. I ussually put my ipod just above my shifter resting on the ashtray thing.. but everytime i pushed a button on my ipod i opened the ashtray. So i opened everything up and put some strategically placed zipties that keep it from opening.. i made a video afterwards but ill take a pic of the actual mod when i get off work